Argentina is one of South America's largest and most important economies. It has a population of 40,412,376 inhabitants and a GDP per capita of $14,700 (adjusted by purchasing power parity). Although it suffered through a severe financial crisis in 2001-2002, the country's economy has now almost fully recovered to pre-crisis levels. This has been demonstrated by the positive impact that the recent economic recovery is had on living standards, as demonstrated by the steady improvement in key social indicators. In fact, Argentina is now ranked 45th in the Human Development Index and According to the World Bank, poverty and indigence rates fell between the second semester of 2003 and the second semester of 2004. The percentage of individuals (households) in poverty declined to 40.2 percent at the end of 2004. As the country continues on its road to recovery, the scars of a prolonged economic contraction remain visible throughout its territory.

Despite indications that the worst is over and the economy has stabilized, from the social perspective, Argentina still has a long way to go before it fully recovers to pre-crisis levels. Argentina's commitment to improving the conditions of its citizens and achieving the MDGs appear to be on having some success. Argentina has developed ninth objective and modified some objectives to complement those set in the Millennium Declaration. This ninth goal is related to the reduction of unemployment and the improvement of working conditions in their territory.

Today, the major concerns are the increasing polarization, impoverishment, and social inequities that have grown since the end of the 90's, and need to be tackled. In terms of distribution of family income, Argentina's Gini Index is 45.84 (2009). As a consequence of unemployment and income reduction, half of the Argentine families lack a steady income to assure a basic package of goods and services. In the last few years the Argentine Social Security System - the main axis of the this country's health system – has been facing a very serious financial crisis bringing almost all health institutions dependent on it to near collapse conditions. In that sense, the country faces two serious health challenges; 1) to overcome the sanitary emergency and 2) to close the gap that statistical means occult, and define the margins of inequity between the richest and poorest sectors of the population.